Somebody up there doesn’t like me much at the moment. The bank insists that two cash machines which failed to deliver me £400 actually did and is charging me accordingly; Mrs Oakley’s entire cooking range has to be expensively renewed because no one will replace a cracked induction hob; and when our sewage pipe blocked the other evening I couldn’t contact the drain company because the village’s telecoms chose that hour to go offline.
‘Those who don’t change their minds get stuck in a rut. You have to be open-minded in this game’
So it continued at Newmarket last Saturday. On a visit to Ralph Beckett’s Kimpton Down yard three days before the Arc, which he won with Bluestocking, I had never seen so many beautifully bred horses bursting with health. I was much taken by Stanhope Gardens, a chestnut colt by Ghaiyyath.
On Saturday, Ralph’s Starzintheireyes had won the race before, the Group 3 Zetland Stakes, under a skilful ride from Rossa Ryan wearing a plaster covering four stitches on his cheekbone.
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